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Riot’s newest Featured Game Mode, Nemesis Draft, is now available to play! You can find my summary of what it isÂ here.

Meet your nemesis (draft)

BY FIZZNCHIPS

Weâ€™ve just cranked open the Featured Game Mode workshop and rolled out the teamâ€™s latest creation! This time, youâ€™re picking your ENEMIESâ€™ champions before making the most of the champs and comps they pick out for you. Here are the main points:

So Riot, I pick the champion theÂ otherÂ team uses? I can give them champs like… Urgot?

Yep, and they can reply with Poppy! But champ select is only a tiny part of a game of League – the rest is all about kicking butt on Summonerâ€™s Rift!

Oh. Yeah that makes sense.

Mmhmm. So once youâ€™ve figured out who on your teamâ€™s playing who, youâ€™ll need to figure outÂ howÂ exactly youâ€™ll win your game. Maybe youâ€™ve got Blitz, Thresh, Janna, Nami, and Poppy. Sweet – stick Thresh and Blitz together for those ludicrous end of days lantern grabs, set Poppy loose in the jungle, and try out Nami top and Janna mid? Or whatever – it doesnâ€™t matter. The point is youâ€™ll have a bunch of tools to use together, and itâ€™s down to you to figure out if you can chisel out a masterpiece with what youâ€™re given, or just derp around the Rift until your Nexus goes boom.

So can I counterâ€¦ counter pickâ€¦?

Yep! Maybe youâ€™ll be Nemesis Drafting away, and discover that youâ€™re being given some pocket siege comp by accident. Instead of just giving your enemies champs that you just think are weak, why not deliberately give â€˜em characters who clear waves slower than a manaless level 1 Swain? Again, itâ€™s up to you.

Huh. How does champion select work?

Excellent question – couldnâ€™t have worded it better myself. In Nemesis Draft, everyone picks a champion for the opposing team, and each team gives their opponents champions fromÂ their teamâ€™s combinedÂ champion pool. For example, if youâ€™re blue side, and only Dave on your team has Nidalee, anyone on your team can give any of theÂ red teamÂ guys the crazy cat lady, even if none ofÂ themÂ own her. Does that make sense? I think that makes sense.

Okay, but what about dodgers? DO YOU HAVE A PLAN HERE, MR. RIOT?!

Of course! Wouldnâ€™t have added this question into an FAQ if we didnâ€™t, duh. Queue dodgers and game leavers might play (or er, start to play) Nemesis Draft, too, so to make sure those of you who legitimately want to play the mode get to actually do so, weâ€™re dialling up the queue dodge and game leaver penalties. Check outÂ this postÂ for details on how our detection system, cunningly named LeaverBuster, works! Spoilers: it can detect if you just disconnected because your ISP hates you, which is nice.

We also wanted to reward the summoners who play the modeÂ properly, so weâ€™ll be sending out a fancy summoner icon to all Nemesis Draft players who play the mode without quitting during champion select or the actual game!

ASUMMONERICONERMAHGERD.

I know right?! Oh, and speaking of which, it wonâ€™t actually hit your account until up to two weeks after Nemesis Draft closes shop. Something something manually applied something takes time something patience.

Anything else we should know?

YEP. Weâ€™re locking Battle Boosts into Nemesis Draft! Stick 125 RP down and youâ€™ll find yourself 200 IP richer while your teammates get 100 IP for basically being in your team, and ALL of youâ€™ll unlock access to all the currently available skins for the champion theyÂ selectÂ are given! Enemy team gives you Veigar? HIT THEM BACK WITH FINAL BOSS VEIGAR AND CACKLE YOUR WAY TO VICTORY. Thatâ€™ll learn â€˜em.

Okay. Cool. So when does this mode end?

Weâ€™ll wrap Nemesis Draft up on February 23, meaning youâ€™ll have plenty of time to find your way around a whole bunch of new champs and comps!

New Active (replaces old): Places a charge on target enemy or tower that explodes after 4 seconds, dealing 60/70/80/90/100Â (+ 0.5 Total AD) (+0.5Â AP) physical damage to nearby enemies. Tristana’s basic attacks against the target increase the charge’s damage by 25%, stacking up to 4 times. If Tristana hits her target 4 times, the charge is detonated automatically

Buster Shot [ R ]

Cooldown decreased from 100/85/70 seconds to 60 seconds at all ranks

AP RatioÂ decreasedÂ from 1.5 to 1.0

Trist has a brand new voice to complement her visual and gameplay update! Here are all her lines, courtesy ofÂ SkinSpotlights:

Lore

“Greatness comes in all shapes and sizes, as proven by this diminutive, cannon-wielding yordle. In a world fraught with turmoil, Tristana refuses to back down from any challenge. She represents the pinnacle of martial proficiency, unwavering courage, and boundless optimism. For Trist and her gun, Boomer, every mission is a chance to prove that heroes do exist.”

A brand new featured game mode will be up on the PBE; the basic rules are you get to pick champions for the enemy rather than for yourself.

Hi everyone!

Our first Featured Game Mode for the year, â€œNemesis Draftâ€, is on its way to the PBE. This time around, youâ€™ll be choosing the champions for the enemy team, then making the champs youâ€™ve been given work in battle on the Summonerâ€™s Rift. Let the ‘creative’ comps begin. 🙂

Some notes:
— Nemesis Draft is a 5v5 featured game mode played on Summonerâ€™s Rift.
— Nemesis Draft allows each player to choose 1 champion for the enemy team for a total of 5 per team.
— Each team will still get 3 bans. Do you bans champs do DONâ€™T want to play, or leave them up to give to the other team? Itâ€™s up to you. 🙂
— Available champions for you to give the other team are allowed from the collective pool of champs on your allied team.
— There is a free trading period after all champs have been locked in, allowing you to organise amongst your team who would be best playing which champs. Even if you donâ€™t own a champion, youâ€™ll still be able to trade and play anyone youâ€™re given.

Known issues:

Play flow artwork is still a placeholder.

Nemesis Draft will be live on the PBE soonâ„¢. Weâ€™ve paid special attention to the champion select phase this time, to make the picking & trading phases as clear as possible, so feedback on that flow will be welcome. Also “Thanks!” again to you PBE guys that always help us catch things early. Even if we canâ€™t respond to every bug or report individually, we do read EVERYTHING and fix as much as possible.

SO.. weâ€™re excited to see how scheming & creative you guys are. Are we about to uncover some diamonds in the rough? Will it be, â€œGive them all melee champs!â€ or â€œGive them all AD so we can just build armour!â€. And then the inevitable, â€œOk guys. Weâ€™ve got 4 junglers and a support.. but so do they! Letâ€™s do this.â€ I canâ€™t wait. 🙂

In an upcoming patch, weâ€™re introducing a new series of features thatâ€™ll help you find and add your IRL friends in League. Weâ€™re designing a hub for these features thatâ€™ll grow over time. The first of these helps you add fellow League players from your Facebook friends list. Many of you are on Facebook, and already use it to find friends in gaming networks. To us, it makes sense to start there.

When the new hub goes up, you’ll have the option of finding friends in League through Facebook. To clarify, you must choose to activate and use this feature. If you do, you’ll start seeing friend suggestions near the bottom of your League friends list. From there, you can add your friend or dismiss the recommendation.

Youâ€™ll only see suggested friends under all of these conditions:

Both you and the suggested friend have activated and approved the Facebook connection

You aren’t yet friends in League

You are friends on Facebook

Neither you nor the suggested friend have ignored the recommendation

When you add a suggested Facebook friend to your LoL friends list, you’ll still see them by their summoner name. In this implementation, their Facebook name will be prepopulated in their friends list note so you remember whoâ€™s who. You can still change the note afterward if you like.

We recognize that this isn’t a feature for every player. A key design tenet for the feature is that nothing changes for players who choose not to use it. We want this feature to be easy to ignore, while still valuable for those who want to beef up their friends list. We also want to make it easy to opt out of the feature at any time and for any reason.

Another key design tenet is privacy. Weâ€™ve taken extra steps to ensure that your Facebook info will never be shared with players if you haven’t explicitly activated the feature. If you do authorize and activate the feature, only your Facebook friends will ever see you as a suggested friend. Your Facebook info wonâ€™t be shared with strangers, wonâ€™t interact with your Facebook feed and will never post to your Facebook Timeline for you.

This feature is going to be on the PBE for a while so that we can gather feedback and iterate. Weâ€™re not quite finished yet, but we wanted to make sure to get the word out early. I’ll be around in the thread with Limely, a designer on the feature, to answer any questions!